Tetlock: Another Example of Lifting the Heavy Box

To me, Tetlock's research showing that humility is important to learning becomes exactly another example of 'lifting the heavy box.' In FDK, we say that you don't reorganize how you use your spine while you are lifting the heavy box. That is not the learning zone. Put the box down, explore possibilities about your spine, then try lifting it more safely or efficiently. In the Tetlock case, he pit people whose livelihood and possibly their self-importance depended on the quality of their predictions, against self-declared amateurs who had very little at stake except interest and curiosity. Extrinsic drivers in comparison to intrinsic motivations. Work instead of play. Ambition, goals, effort …. or creativity? Now, there is a lot to be said for the virtue of hard work. But it would appear that it quashes the zest for learning. In work, there is too much punishment for being wrong. By contrast, in a learning system, you might actually want to set up an exploration zone that has you being wrong sometimes, so that you can learn even more from the error signals. And—when you get an error signal, is that exciting and intriguing, or bad-bad-bad? In Fdk, our lessons create the space where it is fun to explore and exciting to find out you have been wrong.